I’m truthfully shocked by how good sport giveaways have been in recent times. In the previous few months alone we’ve seen some genuinely nice stuff given away for nothing however the time it takes to click on a button. Even if a lot of the giveaways are promotional in nature, there’s sufficient out there for nothing to maintain even essentially the most fervent participant going for months. For the subsequent 44 hours (give or take a couple of minutes), you’ll be able to rating the Ultimate Edition of Stardock’s well-received sci-fi 4X technique sport Galactic Civilizations 2 right here on the Humble store, free to keep forever.
Galactic Civilizations II is probably not the best technique sport ever made, however in response to our resident grasp of struggle Adam Smith, it’s in the top 25, and that’s to not be sniffed at.
At coronary heart, Galactic Civilizations II is what it seems like on the tin; Civilization in house. Still, it has just a few attention-grabbing quirks of its personal, together with a extremely versatile 3D spacecraft editor that permits you to actually outline what your empire seems to be like out within the stars. Or you’ll be able to simply make the whole lot appear like genitalia – human or in any other case – if you wish to make the remainder of well mannered house uncomfortable. It was additionally well-known for its AI on the time, though it has been overtaken considerably up to now decade.
GalCiv 2 bought quite a lot of post-release help. In truth, which may be understatement of the day. Case in level: the sport was initially launched approach again in 2006, and was nonetheless getting notable updates proper into the twilight weeks of 2015, lengthy after the launch of its sequel. It was additionally buoyed for a really very long time by a devoted mod scene. While not capable of bend the engine fairly as a lot another 4x video games, there’s an excellent vary of themed races and various 3D ship hulls to seize from Stardock’s own mod repository here.
While I by no means bought together with the sport fairly as a lot as others, I’ve additionally by no means been particularly drawn to 4X technique video games usually, making me fairly uncommon amongst RPS’s writers. For the remainder of you, there’s most likely a really busy weekend of designing spaceships and kicking over empires forward of you this weekend for those who select to choose it up. Which you need to, because it’s free, and it’s not like there’s a finite variety of copies out there. Go grab it.
